Wanderlust and facination with great food have always been my hallmarks. I'll hop on a plane in a second & thru this open approach to life/adventure I've found my way in & out of over 20 countries. I get the most out of these places thru the cuisine, cooking, locals & studying languages. I love farmer's markets, trying out restaurants & strange food, island/alps/bar hoping & most of all, sitting in the sun with a beautiful view and something delicious to eat.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Apricot Jam, Argentina Style

Here's the first of my posts about my wonderful stay in Argentina. I ate and saw so many delicious things, I'm just going to go in chronological order to present them all. The day after arriving at my aunt's ranch, a half an hour outside of Argentina's second largest city, Cordoba, I went for a walk to strech my flight cramped legs. I stumbled upon an old orchard of apricot trees growing by a pond. Right now it's summer there, and the apricots were just beginning to ripen. I managed to pick about 2 kilos, enough to make a big pot of jam. Serendipitously, I had brought with me (as airplane reading material) Jeffery Steingarten's book, "The Man Who Ate Everything" (an excellent and highly entertaining read) and one of the recipes in it is for apricot conserves. I didn't use quite as much sugar as the recipe called for, but I really liked the technique of carmelizing the sugar and adding the apricots in two parts, keeping the second addition more intact. I also didn't bother with canning the jam, as there were so many people there we went through it fairly quickly. This is my slightly ammended recipe:

Put half the sugar and the water in a large sauté pan over high heat. Cook, stirring often, until the sugar reaches the thread stage (230 F.) Add half the apricots and cook, stirring constantly until the fruit starts to get mushy. Add the rest of the sugar and stir until it dissolves, then add the rest of the apricots and cook until they start to get mushy, but before they begin to break down. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Put in jars (it should yield about 4 1/2 pints) and use it soon, or can it.

Summer's bounty on display at a fruit vendor's cart in downtown Cordoba

About Me

Emily Baird is a culinary school trained professional chef in Los Angeles, CA. She has worked for high profile and celebrity clients in kitchens from California to New York to Europe and at one point aboard a luxury yacht, cruising the open seas. Her cooking style is California oriented, healthy, highly seasonal, with lots of local, unprocessed ingredients and a strong emphasis on the visual appeal of food. She also loves baking, exploring new restaurants and farmer's markets, globe trotting and food smuggling. Her favorite things to eat are grilled sardines, BLT's, gelato, green papaya salad, duck confit and anything with lemon, chocolate or meringue.